Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback lapsed into truthiness as he touted his plan to re-people population-shedding areas of Kansas by offering tax breaks. Brownback said he is convinced that Kansas is losing residents to states that have no income taxes, although, as the Associated Press pointed out, it's more of a feeling than a fact.
Brownback signed the bill into law amid skepticism that tax breaks and student-loan forgiveness are going to attract settlers to rural Kansas. (What's the point of low income taxes, after all, if the career opportunities end at seed sales?) There's also new evidence that tax rates don't affect migration patterns.
The data comes from New Jersey, a state that imposed a "millionaire's tax" in 2004. Academics looked at the numbers to see if the higher tax rate on income above $500,000 drove away people who make that kind of scratch. Take it away, Wall Street Journal:
The study found that the overall population of millionaires increased during the tax period. Some millionaires moved out, of course. But they were more than offset by the creation of new millionaires.In other Brownback news, the governor dropped by Kansas State, his alma mater. Brownback held an informal chat with fraternity and sorority members. Channeling David Brooks, he encouraged the students to develop their emotional intelligence.The study dug deeper to figure out whether the millionaires who were moving out did so because of the tax. As a control group, they used New Jersey residents who earned $200,000 to $500,000 -- in other words, high-earners who weren't subject to the tax. They found that the rate of out-migration among millionaires was in line with [the] rate of out-migration of submillionaires. The tax rate, they concluded, had no measurable impact.
One of the big losses in society in America today is that we've got people with well-trained minds but not well-formed hearts. Really smart, very analytical, but they don't care much about others. ... People want to know you really do care.Nice words, boss. Here's a soundtrack for the message.
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I lived in KCK for the first 34 years of my life, then moved 1/2 mile out of town to Merriam in '09. Night and day. Wish I'd done it sooner.
And yes, in retrospect I should have left user names on the comments for attribution.
-(Tacitus) I grew up near a small kansas town which had it's schools close (and consolidate with 4 other towns). Agriculture sustained the population once upon a time, but today, agriculture requires orders of magnitude less labor than it used to.
If Brownback knew what he was doing, he'd go double-or-nothing: investing in downtown KCK and downtown Wichita. Small towns are not the future; they have been declining for 100 years (except for a couple of years during the great depression). There is little that can be done to reverse such a trend.
-(Tacitus) Claiming that young people move out of rural Kansas because of income tax is silly. They leave because other places have (in alphabetical order):
1) Cities
2) Culture
3) Jobs
-(Mark) Apparently, people with money make all their decisions based on whether they will pay tax, and they assume that everybody else makes their decisions the same way.
-(Paul Lagle) Alaska
Florida
Nevada
South Dakota
Texas
Washington
Wyoming ...have NO income tax at all. If you want Kansas to prosper, end yours! :)
How many people from Pretty Prairie have moved to Keene, New Hampshire? Probably wouldn't be too hard to find out because you could use your fingers to count. If there was a count.
Some of my previous comments sound more authoritative when they're posted from your user name. :p
So what part of town do you live in, anyhow?
I almost think it was posted sarcastically. I mean, does anyone think Florida and Nevada are "prospering" right now?
Either way, you're absolutely right. Wyoming and Alaska are 49th and 50th in population, and they have no income tax because of that population and money from coal and oil, respectively.
"Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, Wyoming ...have NO income tax at all. If you want Kansas to prosper, end yours!"
I know that you're just reposting that, but comments like that drive me crazy. Not all of those states are prospering, and the ones that are have a good climate year-round, and THAT'S why people are moving there.
A bumped sampling of comments from an earlier thread on this topic...
-Communities have set aside free land all over the place in Kansas, and no one wants that either. It's hard to build a house when you don't have an income.
I get it. I've driven through countless towns in Kansas that are on life support, and it's kind of heartbreaking. The kids are bussed 20 miles away each day to the school in the county seat (where the government is the only employer), then they leave town the second they graduate. The towns are less than a generation from disappearing completely, and no realistic tax incentive is big enough to get someone to move there.
-I grew up near a small kansas town which had it's schools close (and consolidate with 4 other towns). Agriculture sustained the population once upon a time, but today, agriculture requires orders of magnitude less labor than it used to.
If Brownback knew what he was doing, he'd go double-or-nothing: investing in downtown KCK and downtown Wichita. Small towns are not the future; they have been declining for 100 years (except for a couple of years during the great depression). There is little that can be done to reverse such a trend.
-Claiming that young people move out of rural Kansas because of income tax is silly. They leave because other places have (in alphabetical order):
1) Cities
2) Culture
3) Jobs
-Apparently, people with money make all their decisions based on whether they will pay tax, and they assume that everybody else makes their decisions the same way.
-Alaska
Florida
Nevada
South Dakota
Texas
Washington
Wyoming ...have NO income tax at all. If you want Kansas to prosper, end yours! :)
You forgot going to the livestock auction and high school football. Those are the other two things that prospective residents of Western KS would have to look forward to.
"Kansas is losing residents to states that have no income taxes"
It's usually libertarians who try to make that claim, but it's just not true. And tax breaks and loan-forgiveness will not attract people to rural Kansas, because there's nothing to do in rural Kansas. Paying off your loans and paying low taxes aren't much consolation when the highlight of your month is getting a new movie from Netflix in the mail.
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